


Two Reasons

by mmmdraco



Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-17
Updated: 2012-07-17
Packaged: 2017-11-10 04:09:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/462054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmmdraco/pseuds/mmmdraco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Akira goes to China, following in the footsteps of his father, he sends pictures to Hikaru.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Reasons

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I mean no harm, I have no money... Stuff like that. Yeah.

There were times in his life when he knew he'd done the wrong thing. He'd freaked out when Sai first came into the picture. He'd underestimated both Touya's in his life. He'd overestimated himself. He'd freaked out again when Sai left. He freaked out when one Touya left, but not the other. And that last thing was the one that was the most wrong.   
Touya Akira was everything in Shindou Hikaru's life. He was the reason to get up in the morning, especially when the sun wasn't up yet, and get ready to go to his job teaching people who were often two or three times his age how to do what he did because of Sai, but more because of Touya. Touya was the reason he sometimes stopped at the entrance of the ramen restaurant he favored and turned around to head toward some place where the food was a little healthier. Remarks about turning into a go pro "just like Kurata" got to him just enough.

And then Touya had made a decision. He'd moved to China, like his father. He'd taken a break from the Go Institute for a year, put a lot of his things in storage, and left with a few goodbyes and promises of phone call and letters. Hikaru was counting. He'd called once, two weeks after he'd gotten moved into his place in China, to tell Hikaru how much his father had improved since going to China and how amazing some of his games at the Institute there had been and, also, how much fun he was having. It struck Hikaru as odd, because he'd never heard the word "fun" pass through Touya's lips before. When it did, he'd asked more about it and then, suddenly, Touya had to go off and he hadn't called since.

The letters came about once every two weeks, usually with a new picture of Touya playing Go against some famous Go personality or a well-known public figurehead. Hikaru put each one up on his fridge with a small magnet. When that was filled, he started putting them in the corners of the windows and against the walls on the countertops. When he got a picture of Touya laughing and balancing a go stone on the tip of his nose, he went out and bought a cheap frame and kept it in the living room next to the pictures he kept of his family and his other friends. When he was looking at it one night, missing his friend, and dragged it into his bedroom so he could go to sleep, it just never seemed to make it's way back out again. 

The whole time, Hikaru had matches. He usually got a bit distracted during the matches by plays that Touya might have made, but he won all but two in the span of the year and rose in dan ranking, matching what Akira had been when he left... what he would be when he came back. 

One night, later than anyone usually did so, Hikaru got a knock on his front door. He pulled himself out from under the special kotatsu he'd bought with some of his recent winnings, and away from the bottle of sake he'd started to partake of, and answered the door. It was, of course, Touya. It was Touya because no one else would disregard the fact that he would have to get up early in the morning. No one else would take it for granted that he wasn't busy. No one else would be more wanted. "Hey." He opened the door a bit more and stepped out of the way to let Touya in.

"Hi. I just got back. I..." Touya stopped in the entryway and took his shoes off. "I wondered if you might want to play a game."

"Oh. Sure." Hikaru led Akira to the living room and to the kotatsu with the cup of sake set up by the inlaid go board with a game half played-out on it. "I was just in the middle of -"

"This was our first game once you entered the pro leagues." He sat down on the opposite side of the board and played the next stone in the sequence.

Hikaru's fingers reached out and grabbed another stone and placed it. "How was China?"

"Didn't you get my letters?" Akira pushed a stone into place on the board.

Rolling his eyes slightly, Hikaru picked up his sake and took a sip, enjoying the slight burn as it went down his throat. "Yes. I got your letters. But, no one ever says everything that's going on in letters. And, why didn't you call ever again?" He set the cup down hard enough to slop sake onto a blank kifu sheet.

Akira looked at the board and nothing else. "Because I didn't want you to know how much I missed... everything. You. I knew I couldn't talk to you without wanting to come back."

"Why did you go in the first place if you knew you'd want to come back so much?" Another stone on the board, Hikaru took another sip of sake.

"There were two reasons."

"Do you want a cup of sake while you talk?" Hikaru was already up on one knee.

"Yes."

Hikaru walked into the kitchen and paused in front of the fridge to look at the pictures. He followed them in sequence and noticed that Touya's hair had grown and he'd stopped always wearing things that looked uncomfortable and he'd gotten something close to a sense of humor. He grabbed a cup for Touya and turned around to bring it into the living room and promptly dropped it, shattering it on the floor. Touya was looking at the pictures, as well. "Hell, Touya! I thought you'd stopped doing that thing of sneaking up on people!"

"You kept them all." He pushed his hair behind his ears in an oddly child-like gesture for the occasion. "I thought you might put them in a pile somewhere, but you actually have them where you'll see them. I... I wasn't expecting that."

"What did you want me to do? I missed you too, you know!" He glared at the floor and the scattered shards of the cup. "I kept thinking about why you went and whether I made you go somehow, and if you maybe weren't going to come back and what I would do if that happened, and I didn't know what to do!"

"You could have called me."

"No." Hikaru went to the closet and pulled out the broom and dustpan. "I couldn't call you. If I called you, you would have realized I missed you, and you might have done something stupid like come back for *me* when you were doing important things. Why did you go?"

"I decided to go because I wanted to improve my go skills like my father did. I needed to know I was good enough, and I needed to get better because you were getting better."

"And?"

"You said there were two reasons." Hikaru knelt and carefully swept up the remains of the cup, careful not to cut himself as he nudged a larger piece into the dustpan with his fingers.

"And because I wanted you to catch up to me in dan level. I was a few levels ahead of you. The institute would have stopped having us play each other as much once I went up another level unless you caught up to me, and I couldn't have that."

"So, let me get this straight. You went away... for a year... because of some deluded reasoning about getting better and getting to play each other more and, in the span of that year, left me to play against a bunch of half-wits and morons who did nothing for my gameplay and gave up 365 days when we could have played games against each other. Is that about right, or did your Japanese get bad while you were gone and I'm now missing something in the translation?"

Akira turned his head and walked over to the fridge, touching certain photos of himself. "I had a third reason, I guess."

"Enlighten me."

"I needed to know I wasn't dependent on you. I also needed to know how I... forget it."

"No. I won't forget it. I won't ignore it. I won't let you not tell me things anymore." He stood up and dumped the dustpan and contents into the trashcan without a thought. "Tell me." He stepped forward and put a hand on the fridge. "Tell me, Touya."

"I needed to know how I felt about you. I needed to know if this was friendship or just rivals or maybe it's because we work together or what... because I can't keep letting my mind wander to you if I don't know what it means!"

"Did you figure it out?"

"It's why I came here tonight. But, I don't know if I can tell you."

"Dammit, Touya!" Hikaru pulled his hand from the fridge, knocking a few of the pictures to the floor, and pulled Touya into his arms and into a kiss. He pushed the other man against the fridge and held him there with his arms as he pulled away. "How could you? How could you go when I was feeling the same way? Why can't we ever, you know, *talk* like normal people? We have to run away for a while until we can run back in with the baseball bat that is our feelings. Just... just promise me something."

"What?"

"Promise you won't do this again. Promise you won't ever run away again. Just... learn to talk to me, and I'll do the same thing, and then we can talk and play go and-"

Touya's lips were on his and then Touya's hands were warm against his back. "If that's how you feel, then I have to tell you something else."

"What?"

"That when I came over tonight, I was hoping you'd ask me to spend the night."

 

"The bed isn't really big enough for two."

"I don't really want to sleep."

"Oh." There was a pause filled only by the soft hum of the fridge. "Oh!"

"Whether it's talking, go, or anything else, I just want to spend some time with you because I've been deprived for so long."

"It's your own fault."

"You're right."

Hikaru pulled away. "I am?" He smiled smugly. "That's the first time you've ever said that."

"That's because it's the first time it's been true."

"Oh, Touya? Learn to count."

"What?"

"Your two reasons became four. I'm beginning to think China did you more harm than good. Should we go play a game to find out?"

"Yes." Touya said, pushing away from the fridge. "Let's go."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Podfic: Two Reasons](https://archiveofourown.org/works/526797) by [mmmdraco](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmmdraco/pseuds/mmmdraco)




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